Poem 275

This comes from a walk I took from Miramar crossing under the airport to pick up the car from a garage in Kilbirnie … not exactly an epic hike but images from it stuck with me …

( I like that Rongotai is both the airport and the school the boys come from, I like the uns in under the runway the tunnel and the ‘ea’ dipthongs in beneath the heavy tread and sweats inside dreadlocks, also the way alliteration lends cadence and cohesion to the last six lines … )

Rongotai

Under the runway
the tunnel is full of schoolboys
        the whirring gears
        of their bikes
they flick out cigarettes and brave talk
shadowed beneath the heavy tread
of the planes
                       Friday afternoon
the road gang sweats inside dreadlocks
steps aside to watch the roller
press steam from the juicy
tar
       a jet hovers in
soundlessly touches ground
arrives again
                        in sound
for a full minute
                             pummelling the housed hills

                             we in the southern suburbs
live with the noise turn our TVs up
observe a respectful silence
as someone passes over
to Australia